


Pregnant Pause

by fiacresgirl



Series: Summer of Sorrow [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Coping, F/M, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, PSTD, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Test
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 03:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7150394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiacresgirl/pseuds/fiacresgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity finds out she's pregnant in the aftermath of Damien Darhk's Genesis plans, and she has to tell Oliver.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pregnant Pause

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geniewithwifi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geniewithwifi/gifts).



> This chapter is [for Holly](http://archiveofourown.org/users/geniewithwifi/pseuds/geniewithwifi), who didn't get what she wanted in Chapter 10 of [Pollen Vector](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5963350/chapters/15358480). Better late than never! MWAH!

“You’re what?” Oliver says.

“I’m pregnant,” Felicity says. They’re down in the Bunker or whatever Oliver’s calling it in lieu of the New and Improved Arrow Cave. She can control the repercussions of this conversation better down here if his reaction is what she thinks it might be.

Oliver stands stock still in the center of Felicity’s computer space. It’s almost all repaired after the damage the ghosts did during last month’s events. They’ve made a good joint effort at clean up and hauled the broken stuff up to the dumpster together, but it’s not what it was. There are still cracks everywhere - floors, ceiling, walls, glass.

Oliver stops and gives her an incredulous stare. “But we used protection. I wore a condom every time.”

“I was there,” She says. “I know. Apparently it didn’t work because the stick has two lines.” She wheels over to the empty work station and grabs her purse.

“Two lines?”

“The pregnancy test,” Felicity says impatiently, pulling it from her purse. “One line means not pregnant, and two means you’re pregnant. See? Two lines.” She tosses the test at him, and he catches it in one hand. Of course he does. She watches him take in the screen and its message, and then the wonder begins to dawn on his face.

“It doesn’t change anything,” she says quickly. “Between us.”

“It doesn’t _change_ anything?” Oliver asks, coming to her and crouching down in front of her. “What do you mean it doesn’t change anything? It changes everything. We’re going to have a baby.” The look on his face reminds her of that night last December, that mountain-top night that was the summit before their long, breakneck skid downhill to this dim, broken place.

She pushes his hand off her knee and says slowly, “I didn’t say that I’m going to have a baby. I said I’m pregnant.”

He rocks back on his haunches, his mouth hanging open.

“We’re not together. Nothing has changed since we broke up.” This is not precisely true, but it’s true enough for her purposes.

Oliver’s face hardens. “Since you broke up with me,” he says. “I never broke up with you.”

“Okay, since I broke up with you,” she says impatiently. “It’s the same thing. You can’t be a couple if the other person isn’t being a couple with you.”

“We still spend every night down here together, and you come to the loft later.” He stands up and folds his arms in front of his chest in that infuriating way that shows all of his muscles and veins. The tiny screen on the test stick catches the overhead light and throws it in her eyes.

“Not every night,” she says, blinking. “And it’s just sex. I _told_ you that. I _keep telling you that_.”

He tilts his head, and his blue eyes go gentle. “It’s not just sex, Felicity,” he says quietly. “Not when you cry afterward and tell me how much you love me.”

“That was one--” Felicity stops and corrects herself. “That’s only happened a couple of times.”

“It’s almost every time,” Oliver says. “I’m just not allowed to say it back. Doesn’t make it not true.”

“Do you think I wanted to break up with you?” she asks. “I didn’t. I wanted to marry you.” She scootches her chair back to the safety of her computers.

“And I want to marry you,” he says. “So let’s get married. It’s too late now, but we can do it in the morning. Maybe it will still be soon enough that our kids won’t look at us uncomfortably one day.” He smiles that charming smile, the slightly crooked one that’s gotten him so far with people. She’s seen him use it over and over - with neighbors, in business meetings, campaigning, proposing… It’s not going to distract her now, though.

“Oliver, I can’t marry you, and I don’t know if I can have this baby. Family is the target all of your enemies use against you, and you don’t think rationally when that happens. You just react unilaterally. You don’t stop to think how that affects others - how it affects _me_.”

“That’s not going to happen,” he says.

“Okay, then,” she says, “what’s to stop you from sending us away some day like you sent Samantha and your son away three months ago?”

Oliver’s mouth drops open. “You think I’d send you away?”

She lifts her chin. “Not right away, but eventually I do. Yes. For our ‘protection.’”

“I wouldn’t,” Oliver says. “Ever.”

She brushes off a speck of lint from her burgundy skirt.

“How can you think that? We’re a team. I can’t do this without you. I _love_ you.”

“You love William too. At least, I think you do. But I don’t even know where he is, and you’re planning on not seeing him again until he’s an adult. If then.”

He sputters, “Felicity.”

“Don’t _Felicity_ me,” she says angrily. “Where is he? Do you know how he’s doing? What he’s doing right now? I don’t want to wind up like Samantha.”

“This isn’t going to be like with Samantha,” Oliver says. “She didn’t even tell me about William. I had to find out on my own a decade later. She never wanted me to see him or tell him I’m his father.” The tone of his voice is bitter on the last admission. “So my not being a part of his life now isn’t really hurting him, is it? It’s the way it’s always been.”

She swallows once, seeing his pain. She can’t imagine what he’d gone through this winter, keeping all of this to himself, not knowing how to handle Samantha and her demands or his son. Oliver’s feelings for his family members run so deep. She knows that, but she has to protect herself now.

“I’m not taking the quickest flight to Timbuktu the next time we have someone like Darhk on our hands,” she says and crosses her own arms.

Oliver leans over and touches her shoulder. “Of course you won’t. You know what you’re getting into. You can take care of yourself.”

“That’s not really true, though, is it?” Felicity asks. “It wasn’t true last December. I almost died. Laurel did die, and she was the Black Canary.”

“I’m not leaving you unprotected like Samantha was, and I was always telling Laurel to get out of the vigilante business,” he says. “It would actually be a bonus of living with me again - round-the-clock protection.” He tries out that charming smile again, but doesn’t quite pull it off.

“You were next to me in the limo when Darhk’s men shot it up,” she says. “You couldn’t have been closer.”

“Darhk’s dead,” he says.

“It’s one thing for me to risk my own life,” Felicity says. “That’s my choice. You don’t know what you’re going to do the next time someone scares you like that, though. You never do. I do.”

“What will I do?” he asks.

She stands up from her chair and paces the lighted floor, noting some of the smaller cracks in the glass. “You’ll try to nail down everything you can. You won’t consult me, you’ll revert to Island Oliver. You’ll force me to do what you want. I won’t have any control.”

She hears his scoff behind her and faces him. “What? Did I say something funny?”

“Back when you were new to the team - your _first night_ down there in the lair with Dig and me - you locked me inside when you didn’t like what I was going to do to Ken Williams.” He throws up his hands. “For god’s sake. You’ve seen me furious, exhausted, hopeless. You dragged me back from Lian Yu against my will. You drugged me in Nanda Parbat. When have I _ever_ been able to make you do something you didn’t agree with?”

She thinks about the fact that she’s never been afraid of him, not even back when he’d been killing people left and right. She thinks about how many times she’s let him swing her through space - 100 feet up, 1000 feet up - and how he’s instinctively shielded her body with his every time they’ve been in danger.

“You think I don’t know what it’s like to feel out of control?” Oliver asks, his voice rising. “Jesus, Felicity. My dad’s dead, my mom’s dead. Tommy’s dead. I lost my family’s company. I watched you get gunned down next to me. When _have_ I felt like I was in control? Any time in the last decade?”

She opens her mouth to say something but nothing comes out.

“And now you tell me we’re done, we’re over, and I’m supposed to just like it--”

“You don’t have to like it. I never asked you to do that,” she says. “I wouldn’t. You have to accept--”

“You show up on my doorstep night after night! You break my heart with your pleading eyes. Do you want me to tell you to get it somewhere else? That I’m not your booty call? Up until now I assumed you just couldn’t choke out the words that would fix this.”

Her head is shaking from side to side before she even realizes it.

He steps forward and touches her elbow. “Felicity, that’s our baby. It’s not just a baby. It’s _ours_. Even if it were just yours, I’d still want it. You’re going to have amazing children. Brilliant, funny, kind. Brave. _We’re_ going to.”

That last statement breaks her reverie. “No,” she says. “I’m telling you because we did this together, but it’s my decision. A baby - that’s forever. I don’t think I’m ready...for forever.”

Oliver briefly looks like he’d like to flip a table. The tension in his body is electric. He clenches his jaw and then takes a deep breath. “What can I do to change your mind?” he asks finally.

She can’t hold his gaze, it’s so charged, so she stares at the floor. For the first time she notices that the cracks in the glass make a sort of circular pattern, a ring. A fence. She digs her fingernails into her palms.

“I’m not going to pressure you,” he says. “I won’t threaten you or make ultimatums, but I won’t say this isn’t important to me. It’s _the most_ important thing. The only thing I’ve ever wanted is to be with you and have a family.”

“That’s not true,” she says, defensive. “What about being mayor? You wanted that, and now you are.”

“Fuck being mayor,” Oliver says. “I’m doing that for Star City, same as being Green Arrow. _I_ was happy in Ivy Town.”

She feels the unsaid accusation in his words. He left Ivy Town because she wanted more. He came back to Star City for her, and now what they have isn’t enough for him. Is it enough for her independent of him?

Finally his shoulders slump. “Don’t do anything rash,” he says. “If I can figure out how to take down an army with superhuman strength, I can make this work. _We_ can make this work. Just give me some time.”

She isn’t going to decide anything today, she already knows that. A part of her rebels against doing what he wants, and that part rebels against the part of her that wants him to figure out some miraculous solution.

“How long?” he asks.

“How long?”

“How long have you been pregnant?”

She sighs. “I missed my period only a few days ago, so not very. Maybe 5 weeks? I haven’t been to see a doctor, but the website I clicked on showed the stage of development. The baby looks like a larva.”

He’s still angry, she can tell, but his lips twitch. She knows as soon as she leaves, he will be googling this and probably looking up some books on pregnancy and nutrition. She doesn’t want to think about the kale in her future.

Is there kale in her future?

“I’ll see you back to Lyla’s,” Oliver says. “I don’t want you to do any more midnight runs alone. Call me if you get itchy. I’ll run with you. Or drive you over to the loft.” She watches the thought form on his face. “You know, you could move back in wi--”

“I won’t run anymore at night,” she concedes. “It was reckless, and I’m not even very fast. But I’m staying with Lyla and Sara.”

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay?”

“Whatever you need. We’ll get you whatever you need.”

She bites her lip hard. “What about what you need?”

“You’re what I need,” he says, his blue eyes holding hers.

She swallows again. This decision has just gotten ten times harder to make.


End file.
